Hungry Coal: Coal Mining and Food Security in Indonesia

Indonesia faces serious land use policy con icts that may affect the country’s ability to feed its growing population. This report examines one of those con icts; coal mining and the millions of hectares of cultivated and arable land handed over to coal companies.

We provide evidence on how coal mining is undermining current farm productivity and quantify coal’s impact on current and future rice production. We provide laboratory results of water samples taken at sites affected by operating coal mines and interviews with nearby farmers who are forced to use mine water for irrigation due to the draining of surrounding water resources by coal mines.

Using Indonesian Government spatial data, we map Indonesia’s existing cultivated land affected by coal concessions, identify land suitable for new rice cultivation and map the proportion of this land affected by coal concessions.

Finally, we quantify the impact coal mining has on existing rice production and Indonesia’s future rice production should all these concessions be mined for coal. Indonesia cannot afford to lose valuable food producing land. Nor can it continue to allow its water resources, essential for crops, to be polluted and choked with sediment. If the country is to continue to feed itself, the National Government must radically alter its land use priorities.